Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

ROZSYPNE, Ukraine — As mortar fire landed nearby, an international team of investigators finally
reached the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 wreckage yesterday and got their first look at a scene that
experts fear has been badly compromised in the two weeks since the plane was blown out of the
sky.

For the families of the 298 victims, it was an important start in locating and recovering bodies
still out in the open and building a case against those who perpetrated the tragedy.

Harun Calehr, the uncle of two young victims of the disaster, said by telephone from his home in
the United States that he was happy investigators had reached the site. But Calehr said he remains
concerned that dozens of bodies haven’t been retrieved.

“It’s been two weeks. I just hope they can get there now and do their job,” Calehr said from
Houston. “The only thing keeping me sane is being religious, hoping for something positive.”

As the investigators — two each from the Netherlands and Australia — made an initial survey of
the area shortly after lunchtime, fighting raged between government forces and pro-Russian
separatist rebels, and mortar shells rained down on fields in a nearby village.

Despite the dangers, the team called the one-hour inspection a success.

“Today was more about an assessment of the site than it was of a search,” said Australian
Federal Police Cmdr. Brian McDonald.

Up to 80 bodies still are at the site, said Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, speaking
to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. from Ukraine.

Ukraine and the United States say that the plane was shot down by the rebels on July 17 with a
Russian-supplied missile. The rebels deny it.

For days, clashes along routes to the wreckage site had kept investigators from reaching the
area to find and retrieve bodies that have been decaying in the 90-degree midsummer heat.
Independent observers warned that evidence was being tampered with.

But after negotiations, the investigators were allowed through the final rebel checkpoint at the
village of Rozsypne yesterday afternoon by a rifle-toting militiaman who then fired a warning shot
to prevent reporters from accompanying the convoy.

Ukrainian national-security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said a “day of quiet” was declared
yesterday in response to a call for a cease-fire from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

But clashes were still taking place in the immediate vicinity of where the Boeing 777 came down.
Reporters who tried to reach the area by another route were warned by residents that some nearby
roads had been mined.

The OSCE said on Twitter that the team observed a moment of silence upon reaching the scene in
remembrance of the victims.